Glossary: morphology and phonology

A word that is not morphologically complex, i.e., one that has not been formed by any process such as affixation, ablaut, etc.

A waveform with a simple shapeand a single constant frequency and constant amplitude.

See number.

The soft, movable part of the palate at the back of the mouth.

The natural class of nasals, liquids and glides (including taps, flaps, trills, approximants). Sonorants are usually voiced, and are thus the opposite of obstruents.

The loudness of a sound relative to that of other sounds with the same length, stress, and pitch.

A continuous analytic display of acoustic properties of sound over time, showing which frequencies are emphasized at each moment.

A display of the amplitude of sound at all frequencies, taken at a single point in time.

The phenomenon that a stop changes into the corresponding fricative.

A hypothesis about the architecture of the linguistic system according to which morphology is divided between two grammatical components: word-formation rules apply before syntactic rules, whereas inflectional rules apply after syntactic rules.